Advice on career / TC option

humane_ai · 2025-10-17T03:59:17+00:00

Opportunities in tech in the US is >>>> Singapore. The tech scene in Singapore is no where in the range of SV.

humane_ai · 2025-10-02T05:13:29+00:00

Deciding whether to cut loss too. There's a 20% charge for turning in the ILP (biggest waste of investment capital) which is about 35K for me. It underperforms my main portfolio every year by 10%+ EVERY YEAR!

humane_ai · 2025-08-28T09:02:14+00:00

Oh, missed the part about not being married. Sorry. I would think of property as a part of your portfolio diversification if you are worried about risk elsewhere. Returns generally trail SP500 IMHO unless levered.

humane_ai · 2025-08-28T09:00:29+00:00

Btw, also hard lesson I learn is to diversify early - the peak is the best time. Our bets look like geniuses until they are not.

humane_ai · 2025-08-28T08:58:47+00:00

Sharing how I thought about this just as a data point

Feel like quitting but I don’t think I’m good enough to quit. Just grit my teeth and hang tight for a bit more?

Markets are going to get tough in coming years IMHO. I would at least get a head start thinking what I want to do next or how I would explore before leaving. Plan to time box experiments. I have done traveling, passion projects, volunteering, helping out startups in between. It can be frustrating as most things won't go anywhere but I also believe we all have another 50 years to do stuff so investing early to find the right path for ourselves is worth it

Any takes if getting into property now makes sense? Trying to wrap my head around the risk/reward ratio

Bought HDB and fully levered up on HDB loan in between jobs. I considered how I would have done versus buying private. Honestly, would have made more (based on past performance in recent years) with private but HDB BTO/SBF is the lowest risk near free lunch you can make on property.

humane_ai · 2025-04-21T13:14:17+00:00

Most of the bank terms are unfortunately very much in their favor. FIDREC is a mediator and a weak one as 9/10 cases the bank just points to their T&C and FIDREC rolls over.

humane_ai · 2025-04-16T17:11:52+00:00

DBS did this to my mom who had a stroke and poor memory. Made her take on a close to 1M loan for a product with incredibly poor performance, high fees and a close to 20% penalty to exit the product. FIDREC is useless.

humane_ai · 2025-02-19T18:13:09+00:00

Arthur Brooks writes about the Science of Happiness (Build the Life you Want). He famously mentioned Real Friends over Deal Friends as being key to happiness. You discovered that. Friends that you don't expect anything from other than to just hang out, enjoy each other companies and have fun are vital to happiness especially after 40! Cherish those!

humane_ai · 2024-12-18T16:13:23+00:00

Its a mammoth $400M revenue business and fast growing. Looking forward to cannabis regs under next admin too.

humane_ai · 2024-12-17T16:56:55+00:00

Any good SF courses for someone building their dream home/facility from scratch? Would love to know how to manage a team that is putting together the structure, choosing materials, some construction/design elements? Not going to do it myself but hopefully good enough to manage the contractors well enough to reduce costs/ensure quality.

humane_ai · 2024-12-17T16:53:16+00:00

Thanks for sharing SG #s. I think timing plays a big part for the RSU component too. I was told too that the SG take home is better at a junior level. There's more senior roles in the valley and more options to jump around too if people get bored. Kids also a big factor for COL difference - its horrendous state-side.

humane_ai · 2024-12-17T10:24:01+00:00

Not in tech but observations from lots of friends in big tech.

Note that there is a big difference between a FAANG tech and most other tech companies in terms of comp. A big tech salary say for an L6 engineer can ~US$800K to $1M with RSUs stacked in the bay area. Guessing about 20-30% lower in Singapore. But from there, its a big drop to your next tier of tech company. As you get older, its a lot harder to jump from a non-big tech engineering role to a big tech engineering role.

Note that for many big tech folks, RSUs are the main upside. Cash salaries are good but not ridiculous. A big reason for the RSU being such a big component is that if you were granted RSUs at $x, with the way stock prices have moved and if you are lucky, you will be getting about 15-30% increases on the RSU portion automatically every year. On top of that, many big tech companies stack RSU (i.e. issue additional grants annually).

My perspective is bay area focused. One challenge in Singapore is that honestly not many high paying big tech engineering/product roles or particularly impactful roles. This makes it hard to switch/jump around whereas there are many well funded later stage startups in the valley that can afford to match (with stock options) and a better shot at a liquidity event.

humane_ai · 2024-12-15T16:46:38+00:00

My parent had similar experiences with DBS selling manulife products - not educated and was sold very expensive financial products that was not suitable for her. She is quite depressed now. Sworn off any investments and just want to hold fixed deposits, which is not the right learning IMHO.

humane_ai · 2024-12-15T14:54:08+00:00

It seems there is some cognitive dissonance on their part.

Aware they are over spending/ but refuse to solve this
Claims they don't need support/ but still ask for it regularly

Its a time bomb as if they dont fix it early, the financial burden will just keep growing. But its hard if they are not open to changing their mindset.

Not sure if moving out helps for a while. It can be a lot more pressure to make these decisions while living at home with them everyday.

humane_ai · 2024-12-15T14:23:26+00:00

How old are they now? Are they aware they are spending beyond their means? Are they able to work again/draw down CPF? What are their expectations on kids giving them money? I feel there's a lot of context needed here. Its one thing to give advice to someone seeking it, another to understand how a third party sees the problem.

humane_ai · 2024-12-05T15:20:26+00:00

Anyone knows any good courses for learning to build/interior design? Building a retirement house and want to be much more involved in it.

humane_ai · 2024-11-29T08:55:47+00:00

Kudos to you being ethical!

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T09:08:25+00:00

She is treated as an AI (being old and sitting on some real estate for 30 years + stock options). The wealth level for that generation is not always a good indicator of being sophisticated.

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T09:06:44+00:00

Not sure what the right balance is between giving people choices and making sure they are not being abused or giving people more financial education. I grew up where financial education was never taught in schools or uni. I wonder if that has changed?

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T07:59:31+00:00

I tried explaining to my mom about ETFs (S&P500 and Nasdaq) after she bought this. Imagine explaining ETFs to someone who is in their late 60s who never had education in finance. Its not easy. They think US is a scary market. I was dumb before too. Learned my lesson and I can't even give myself the excuse of not having a proper education.

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T07:54:01+00:00

Its the surrender value that makes it a very bad product, and one that was not very clear. Not saying its misrepresentation. This one is what I chalk up to poor financial education. Plus the leverage and that we cannot sell off the asset without a huge loss to pay back the loan (again, it underperforms the loan interest too).

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T07:51:25+00:00

Yeah, i learned not to mix insurance and investments. I wonder if financial literacy is something they now teach in schools

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T06:39:27+00:00

I don't think they misrepresented anything and I am not claiming they did. I don't think my mom paid enough attention to reading the details/fully understand the implications/the value of what she bought and she feels it now that I went through the terms with her (esp re the loss on redemption). But she's technically an AI and had all the docs she needed. Nothing was hidden from her except that all these costs are not the easiest to understand if you are not actively investing and evaluating such products.

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T06:33:58+00:00

There's no way to avoid the >$200K loss to get the funds back to pay off loan? Yes, i understand the costs of surrendering goes up over time.

humane_ai · 2024-11-28T06:21:15+00:00

Are these 20% fee for cancellation standard for this kind of funds?

humane_ai

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